For planar graphs, this theorem follows from flow/coloring duality, and the Five color theorem (every loopless planar graph is 5-colorable). In light of this, we may view this conjecture as a widesweeping generalization of the 5-color-theorem. The Petersen graph does not have a nowhere-zero 4-flow, which shows that this conjecture (if true) is best possible.

It is far from obvious that there should exist a fixed number so that every bridgeless graph has a nowhere-zero -flow. Indeed, this weaker conjecture was also made by Tutte, but was resolved by Kilpatrick [K] and independently Jaeger [J], who both proved that bridgeless graphs have nowhere-zero 8-flows. Seymour [S] improved upon this result by showing that bridgeless graphs have nowhere-zero 6-flows.